The air in the small square felt heavy, filled with the sharp ozone scent from the recently fired Reset bullet and the pure ice aroma that had just shattered, a scent that strangely felt clean and sterile.
The silence that followed the deafening gunshot felt so absolute.
In the middle of the square, the pile of crystals and ice that had been the Guardian Golem was now nothing more than a pitiful mound of rubble, an ice statue now dead forever, its core turned into a dull gray stone.
Across the square, hidden behind the remnants of a frozen fountain, Léo stared with wide eyes.
He had kept his eyes tightly shut when the gunshot sounded. He had been waiting for the pain that would crush him.
But what came was only silence.
Trembling, he opened one eye.
The giant golem... was shattered.
And there, amid the ice pile, stood his savior. A tall man in a dark ronin cloak, one sleeve dangling empty at his side, and a white fox mask staring straight at him.
Charles didn't move to comfort the child. He didn't even glance at him.
He just stood still, his wounded body trembling violently from the remnants of adrenaline and extraordinary exhaustion.
The pain from his severed shoulder and his thigh pierced by crystals throbbed in sync with his racing heartbeat.
He leaned against a shattered pillar remnant, his heavy breath forming thick vapor clouds in the cold air.
At that moment, a familiar blue screen appeared before him, its cold light feeling like a mockery amid this heartbreaking scene.
It was a notification that the quest was complete!
Charles ignored the child, who now began to cry softly from relief, his voice sounding so small in the vast square. He just stared at the notification screen with a blank gaze behind his mask.
Three days. It had been three days since he left the underground shelter.
Three days he had wandered alone in this dead city, driven by cold hatred for the Raiden Shogun and nausea at his own weakness.
He had roamed, not to be a hero. He did it because he had no other purpose besides seeking the root of this freezing. Though he had known from the start that the cause was Amelia.
During those three days, this scene had repeated itself several times. He found other survivors trapped in ruined apartment rubble, in derailed aquabus carriages, or in frozen shops.
And each time he found them, the Guardian Golems seemed to awaken from their slumber, drawn to the warmth of mortal life. He had fought, killed, and saved, all in total silence, like a reluctant angel of death carrying out his duty.
Saving them, he thought cynically, staring at the small child now rising tremblingly. Or just delaying their deaths? I'm no savior. I'm just a man looking for a way to die while taking my enemies with me. Every golem I destroy, every life I drag back to the shelter... it's all just practice. Practice for the day when I'll stand before the Throne of Eternity.
The pain in his severed shoulder throbbed sharply again, an eternal reminder of the debt to be paid. He shifted his gaze from the child and back to the system screen.
He extended his remaining hand, his right hand gloved.
At that moment, a small chest, adorned with intricate gold carvings, appeared in his palm in a flash of light. He opened it without enthusiasm.
This time there was no explosion of light, just a soft click, and a small solid object landed on it.
It wasn't a weapon. It wasn't an artifact. It was a single bullet casing.
Charles lifted it closer to his eyes hidden behind the mask.
The bullet was strange and beautiful in a horrifying way. It seemed made of smoky crystal or polished obsidian, its surface so black it absorbed all surrounding light.
The bullet was completely sealed, with no primer at the bottom or metal projectile at the tip.
But inside it, trapped a clump of pale blue flame that moved restlessly, like a soul imprisoned in a glass cage.
The object felt cold in his hand, emanating a pure aura of death.
This bullet... he muttered inwardly, his hand holding the bullet trembling slightly. Can be used for Sinner.
A description screen appeared before him, explaining the nature of the artifact he had just obtained.
Item name: The Ghostfire Cartridge
Description: A single-use bullet. When inserted into the cylinder, it changes the revolver's function. The user no longer needs to aim physically. By focusing on the target's identity (name, face, or strong memory of them), the fired shot will vanish and directly hit the target wherever they are, piercing all physical barriers and delivering the revolver's mental curse effect at maximum dosage. To fire a shot that attacks the target's existence, the user must sacrifice their own existential stability. After firing this bullet, the user's past becomes "unbound." Others' memories of the user will begin to fade and change, records of their existence (writings, photos) become blurred, and their life history becomes vulnerable to being rewritten by other forces or wills. They become a ghost in their own timeline.
Charles read the description repeatedly, the words seeming etched with cold fire in his mind.
A bullet that can hit anyone, anywhere. A bullet that attacks the concept of existence itself.
A bullet perfect for an Archon secluded in her untouchable eternity.
And the price? Losing his past? Becoming a ghost in the timeline?
His lips behind the mask curved into a cynical smile full of irony.
What past do I have to worry about? My past as an ordinary man on Earth? This system doesn't seem to know... that I was already a ghost even before I arrived here. What does it mean to lose something I no longer remember?
He gripped the obsidian bullet tightly, feeling its strange cold seeping into his palm. This was no longer just a weapon. This was the key to his revenge. This was certainty.
He inserted the bullet into Sinner's cylinder carefully. He had to leave here. He no longer cared about the child still sobbing across the square.
He jumped, using his only arm to grab the edge of a ruined bakery roof, then pulled his wounded body up with a stifled groan.
From the rooftop, he could see the entire frozen city, a sadly glistening ice tomb under the pale light. He stood there for a moment, the cold wind buffeting his fox mask, letting the pain from his wounds sharpen his mind.
At that moment, far in the distance, a blinding orange flash suddenly illuminated the gray sky. The flash was followed by a faint shockwave, and seconds later, a deep and muffled explosion sound echoed throughout the city.
BOOM-RUMBLE...
Charles immediately narrowed his eyes behind the mask. He knew explosion sounds. He was very familiar with the small explosions from his finger snaps. But this... this was different. This was bigger. More chaotic.
That's not a golem. That's... conventional explosives? Someone is fighting?
Without a shred of doubt, he leaped from roof to roof, his wounded body moving with forced speed and agility.
He landed hard on the street below, sending echoes of pain through his body, but he ignored it.
He ran limping over the snow, driven by his new ever-vigilant instinct, toward the source of the explosion.
The hunt has begun!
...
Charles arrived at the crater's edge, his breath held in his throat that felt dry like old paper. The sight before him wasn't just a fight; it was a living anomaly, a blatant violation of the reality order he had long believed in.
The air around the crater felt heavy, charged with static electricity that made the fine hairs on Charles's arm stand. The smell was a nauseating mix of burned ozone, sulfur, charred flesh, and something else—a sharp coppery aroma, like blood boiling on a hot furnace.
Amid the chaos, two figures moved at eye-watering speed.
One was a man—or what remained of a man after sanity left him. His clothes were mere scorched rags, revealing skin that was red and blistered in many places, as if a furnace burned right beneath his dermis.
His long, tangled hair fluttered wildly, half pitch black, half pure white like volcanic ash—a physical sign of the price he had paid to defy something inevitable.
He laughed, a hoarse sound like two grindstones rubbing, a laugh containing no joy, only pure madness that had freed him from the shackles of pain.
His opponent was a girl, slender and clad in a tight tactical cloak, her face completely hidden behind a hood and cloth mask. She moved not like a fighter, but like a ballet dancer performing in a storm.
Every movement was efficient, fluid, and... calculated with impossible precision.
In her hand, a slender sword coursed with purple lightning flashes, an Electro Vision shining brightly at her waist, the only stable light source amid the chaos.
The mad man roared, his maximally dilated pupils now glowing bright orange like two small lava craters.
Without warning, he smashed his fist into the steel pipe rubble beside him. The air around the impact point rippled from extreme heat just before exploding with a deafening roar.
BOOM!
Hot metal shards flew everywhere.
But the girl wasn't there.
Exactly a split second before the man even thought to attack, Charles saw her close her eyes for a moment.
And before the explosion happened, her body was already moving, gliding to the side with unnatural grace.
She didn't stop to admire her evasion.
As she landed, she shot forward. Her Electro-infused sword sang in the air, leaving sharp purple trails.
She moved so fast, aiming at the mad man's exposed side.
But the man, in his madness, had feral reflexes. He turned, ignoring the pain from his countless wounds, and swung his arm made of melted debris to block the attack.
At that moment, the girl did the most impossible thing.
She took a deep breath, and the world around Charles instantly lost its color.
The world's colors—blood red, fire orange, concrete gray—all vanished, replaced by a monochromatic black and white spectrum that was silent. Dust and ice shards flying in the air now hung frozen in place like a constellation of still stars.
The sound of the recent explosion cut off midway, leaving an absolute silence so dense it pressed painfully on Charles's eardrums.
In this frozen world, only the girl retained her color. She moved like a purple flash amid a black-and-white photo, leaving distorted visual trails behind her like ghosts trailing in dark water.
Her lightning-infused sword aimed straight at the mad man's defenseless neck.
But the mad man wasn't frozen.
In the gray world, the mad man's body began to vibrate violently, enveloped in wild, aggressive white static energy. He forced himself to move against the stopped flow of time.
Charles, who could only observe as a paralyzed spectator, watched in horror as the man's black hair whitened rapidly, spreading from the roots like fire consuming a wick.
The skin around his eyes sagged, deep wrinkles etched into his face in milliseconds. He traded decades of his remaining life just for these forbidden seconds.
With a growl sounding like ground stone, he managed to shift his body ten centimeters to the right.
The world's color returned with a brutal snap, accompanied by a sonic boom as the separated air suddenly reunited.
CLANG!
The girl's slash missed his neck, only hitting his shoulder hard, but not fatal.
At the same time, the girl jolted violently as if struck by an invisible force.
"UHUK!"
She fell to her knees, fresh blood spurting, staining her cloak and the snow below.
The physiological burden from the forced movement in zero time now hit her body all at once!
Her heart pounded wildly, its rhythm chaotic, as if wanting to explode out of her chest. Her muscles spasmed violently.
The mad man, now looking twenty years older than seconds ago, didn't care about his aging body. He laughed even harder, his voice now hoarse and old.
"RUN, LITTLE RABBIT! RUN UNTIL YOUR TIME RUNS OUT!" he roared.
He began attacking blindly, no longer relying on physical strength, but on thermal explosions he created from a distance.
He turned the battlefield into a constant hell of fire.
Debris flew, thick smoke obscured vision, and the air temperature rose to the point where breathing felt painful.
The girl was cornered. She could no longer rely on her future sight because there were too many random explosion variables. And she could no longer stop time, because she knew her opponent could move within it.
She was forced to switch to another strategy!
She saw a pitch-black shadow behind a still-standing concrete pillar.
Without hesitation, she threw herself toward the pillar.
As her body touched the shadow, she didn't hit stone. She merged into it. Like black ink spilling into dark water, her form dissolved, becoming one with the cold, airless shadow dimension.
The mad man stopped laughing when his target vanished. He stood in the ring of fire he created, his breath ragged, his skin now red and blistered in places—from his own body heat that couldn't be dissipated fast enough. Steam rose from his pores. He scanned his surroundings with wild eyes.
"HIDING, EH? HIDING?!" he yelled at the shadows. "I'LL BURN ALL YOUR HIDING PLACES!"
He raised both hands to the sky, his eyes shining as bright as small suns. He heated the air molecules in the entire ruin area at once. Blinding orange light illuminated every dark corner, eliminating every shadow.
He was no longer aiming at one point.
He was aiming at everything!
In the shadow dimension, the girl screamed silently. Her cold refuge suddenly boiled. She was forced to emerge, thrown out from the last small shadow remaining, her body shivering violently, her lips blue, but now her skin also beginning to blister from the extreme heat.
She fell sprawled, her breath down to one at a time. Her eyes were now almost completely blind, covered by thick white fog from peeking at fate too often. She could no longer see her enemy.
But her sixth sense that couldn't be turned off now screamed in pain in her head, telling her the mad man's location now approaching.
The mad man stood over her, his shadow covering the defenseless girl's body. He himself was on the brink, his body now looking like a horrific old man.
But madness had freed him from pain.
He raised his burning hot hand, ready to end their pitiful dance.
In the last second, driven by pure survival instinct, the girl activated her time-freeze ability for the last time. And instantly, the world turned gray again.
The mad man, now very old, could only growl in the stopped time.
But he saw what the girl would do. And time resumed.
JLEB!
The girl's sword embedded straight into the mad man's heart!
But at the same time, the mad man didn't try to dodge. He charged forward, letting the sword pierce him deeper, just so he could use his last remaining strength to grab the girl's neck with his burning hot hand!
The girl widened her eyes in horror. She tried to pull her sword, but it was too late.
The man's grip was so strong!
"DIE... WITH ME..." he hissed, his voice now just a fragile breath.
He lifted the girl high into the air with one hand. The girl struggled, her legs kicking the air uselessly, while the mad man's other hand rose, clenched, and began to glow bright orange—a close-range thermal bomb ready to explode them both.
In that desperate final struggle, the girl's hood fell completely, dropping back.
And at that moment, Charles, who had been a mute spectator to this brutal drama, felt his world stop spinning.
The face behind the hood...
He recognized it.
Her skin as white as porcelain, now stained with blood and dust. Her eyes... those eyes couldn't be mistaken. Deep and clear amethyst color, with unique oblong pupils, sharp like a stiletto shape. Her long purple hair cascading to her waist, its color fading to shimmering silver-purple at the ends, now swinging wildly as she was choked.
Charles was transfixed, his entire body frozen as if doused in ice water. His tongue numb, his brain refusing to process the information just received.
How is this possible?
Keqing. The Yuheng of the Liyue Qixing is here?
...
A/N: Do you know what's the saddest thing? That's right, talking to a wall!
Btw, I'm still expecting comments!
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